Ep 85 - Jay Huh | Why So Many Shop Owners Are Broke

0:00I went from one store to three stores and I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea. I was so broke. I remember when I had three stores, I was standing in line at McDonald's before going into my second store, and I remember thinking, I just have to open up one more store. If I had four stores, then I can net $4,000 a month.

0:15I thought I had to have $1,000 net from each store is all I could do. That was my thinking. Holy cow. Yeah. The following program features a bunch of doofuses talking about the automotive aftermarket. The stuff we or our guests may say do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of our peers, our sponsors, or any other associations we may have. There may be some spicy language in this show, so if you get your feelings hurt easily, you should probably just move along.

0:44So without further ado, here's your host, Mike Allen, with Confessions of a Shop Owner, presented by TechMetric, the best software ever invented for any purpose ever. Okay, good morning. It is day 3 of Vision 2026. We're here in Kansas City, and today I've got Jay Ha with me of CarMedics in Durham, North Carolina. Not to be confused with Car Fix in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1:15We're neighbors, very similar names and, uh, very similar locations, but two distinct different businesses. And, and Jay, I think we've gotten to watch our businesses grow over the years kind of peripherally. We've known each other not been super close, but kind of watched each other from afar. I think we see a lot of the same resumes come across each other's desk and that kind of stuff.

1:36Oh yeah, all the time. Yeah, right. So most of the time that we've talked in the last several years has probably been checking references on dudes. But it has been really interesting to watch you from afar over the last decade. And one of the things I was just saying when we were talking before we hit record was You know, the concept of that show, Confessions of a Shop Owner, is talking about the things that go wrong in the shop and the things that we change and the processes that we change so that they don't go wrong in the same way again.

2:07And before I ever had a podcast, for sure, long before, you were living that reality out in a very public way online. And, you know, you started— I mean, I think you were online sharing your day-to-day operations when you were a one-man band. Oh yeah, back in the day. So tell me about your kind of origin story and then what led you to living life out loud.

2:32I think it was on an ASOG back in the day that you were sharing most of that. So yeah, dude, like ever since college, you remember Xanga? Have you ever done Xanga? Like it's like a daily journal thing that you did online in MySpace. So I used to do that. So that kind of carried on to Facebook stuff. I've always wanted to document stuff, right?

2:49So I've been doing that since early on. But yeah, I started from a home garage in 2015 of October, and then I got kicked out by my HOA and then went into a shared building and then went into the 6-bay facility in the location I'm in now. But yeah, I mean, that's how kind of how I started. I was a mobile mechanic for a little bit too.

3:13I remember like Man, when I first found ASOG, and I don't remember how long ago it was, you were one of the prominent names in that group at the time just because you were such a prevalent poster. You post on such a regular basis. And one of the most toxic things about social media is that people only post their wins. They post vacation pictures only.

3:36Yeah, they don't post when they're crying, when they're fighting, when they're yelling, when things are going poorly.. And what was so impressive about you, frightening from my perspective, was that you were sharing all the dirty shit, man. I remember, uh, I'm trying to think about what I think maybe it was an oil, uh, you had an oil out issue, like maybe a double gasketed filter or something and just an oil lake backing out of the bay or something.

4:02And he shared about it and everybody was bashing you. I was like, you sons of bitches, all of y'all have had that happen at least once. Yeah. Oh yeah. And your just openness with that. What do you think it is about you that you're willing to share the good, bad, and ugly? I don't know. I just share everything online. I share all the good and I share all the bad.

4:21I share just everything. I don't know why I do that, but yeah, I've made plenty of mistakes. And you know, you were telling me about your podcast before I came on and dude, it's just Confessions of a Shop Owner. Everything that you've done wrong as a shop owner and just learning from people's mistakes. That's the best type of learning, is learning from other people's mistakes, because you don't have to make the same mistake.

4:40And I remember, like, I went from 1 store to 3 stores, and I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea. I was so broke. And I remember, I remember when I had 3 stores, I was standing in line at McDonald's before going into my second store, and I remember thinking, I just have to open up 1 more store.

4:57If I had 4 stores, then I can net $4,000 a month. I thought I had to have $1,000 net from each store is all I could do. That was my thinking. Holy cow. Yeah. Holy cow. Where were the other two stores? One was north, like Triangle Town Center Mall, northeast Raleigh, and then shoot, like south Raleigh. Triangle Town Center, not a good area.

5:17Not a good area. South Raleigh, not a good area. None of those were good areas. Yeah, I mean, I was wearing all the hats, putting out all the fires, so I was doing everything in the worst way. Yeah. Well, you— so you consolidated down, um, and you went— I remember the, the time that I was a ShopFix member, we had a little North Carolina group and we toured each other's shops.

5:40And I wanted to show— it was before you moved to the big store you're at. You've been in that same strip mall for a long time now, right? Yep. And now you're kind of in the anchor unit of that strip mall. How many bays do you have now? About 10 bays. Okay. Yeah, I thought it was bigger than that, but anyway. I think you were 4 bays when I came and toured, maybe.

5:57Well, it looked like it's 6 bays, but it looked like 4 bays because it's kind of split. Okay. Yeah. So I went from a 6 bay to 10 bay. Okay. And so that growth has continued. How is, how is 2026 going for you so far? It's going great. You know, we're at maximum capacity. We have 8 techs. Hey guys, Kari Lynn with Turnkey Marketing.

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6:59It has been incredibly effective. It has made shops seem like they're everywhere to those people who need repairs right then. And I mean, I'm telling you guys, the return on investment has been huge. So if you want to increase car count, you want to get great people in the door, give us a call or reach out to us and ask us about DirectTrack Marketing.

7:21Look, when I first opened my shop, I thought my old systems would keep up. The software that I had would continue to evolve, but as we grew, the slow estimates, scattered workflow, increasing downtime, it really just, it was becoming a real problem. That's why I switched to TechMetric. It's not just software, it's a complete shop management system that makes my life easier.

7:43Smart jobs, instant estimates, integrated payments, integrated financing options. I mean, It allows me to focus on the work that actually makes me money and not get bogged down in the other details. My shop's repair orders have jumped over 300% since switching to TechMetric, and when I need help, their support team responds in real time. I actually was online with them asking questions just this week, and I got answers in minutes rather than having to wait for callbacks and emails days later.

8:08If your system is holding you back, it's time for a change. Tap the link in the show notes and see how TechMetric can help you move your shop forward. And so yeah, we're rocking and rolling over there. So do you— so, uh, is it 8 2-posters, an alignment lift, and a QC bay, or how's that? So I have 9 2-post lifts and an alignment lift, but because of the way things are structured, I can't even fit another technician in there.

8:33I can't fit another box. So I'm all about efficiency. I, I waste no space. In fact, my tire machines, they're outside in a storage container, and my guys have to do tires in a storage container outside. Yeah, but I mean, we make it work. Yeah, one of my shops is like that. I've got a 20-foot Konex that we just wired up, and the tire machine and balancer are out there.

8:52So yeah, you just got to do what you got to do sometimes, right? Um, so you grew very publicly, uh, you found a coaching organization which we'll talk about. Obviously you're, you're repping the brand because, uh, I think that seems to be where your passion is right now and has been for a couple years is with ShopFix and being a coach with ShopFix also.

9:17Are you— have you— you're a coach at ShopFix, I know that. Or have you moved up in the hierarchy there and another level also, or— No, I'm just a coach. I'm just one of the— I think we have like around 70 coaches now. Okay. So I'm just one of the coaches. Who's like the director of coaching? Well, Berg is a CEO. Okay.

9:33Yeah. And then we have lead coaches. I don't know if you know Ryan Hillebrand. Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Peavy and Patrick Murray. Those are the 3 lead coaches. So I remember Patrick Murray was just getting started when I was there. Oh, okay. And he's got the, he's got like a just a baller Euro shop, beautiful, in the DC area. Is that right? I think Jersey.

9:53Do you know he moved to North Carolina? Everyone's moving to North Carolina now. North Carolina is a hotbed of automotive, dude. Yeah. We've got so much good stuff going on in North Carolina. I think there's a ton of really strong players that are shop fix guys in North Carolina. And then there's a ton of strong players that are old IGO carryovers into ASTA.

10:11Yeah, but for reasons the shop fix group and the ASTA group don't seem to cross-pollinate very much. And yeah, yeah, I wish that we could fix that, but it's a complex issue, you know, dude. Well, this is one of the things that I always wondered is, man, I always wanted the industry to be united, right? I don't, I don't get the division.

10:28I don't get the hate, man. I just think that I think at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We all want to take care of our people. We all want to take care of our customers and we all want margin in our lives. Right? No one wants to become a shop owner and be broke and have no time for their family.

10:43Right? No one signed up to be a shop owner to work 80-hour weeks. Right? Everyone that wanted to become a shop owner, man, I want to work less, I want some margin, I want to be able to spend time with family. But the thing is, like, we just all become trapped in our businesses. And so that's what happened to me. It's like, man, I thought I kept on having to grow in order to get a little bit of margin back in my life in terms of money.

11:05I mean, I was so broke back then. I grew up poor. Like, I was abused by my dad. And the thing about this industry is it attracts those type of people. Like, we're all broken, everyone's written us off, right? We have no self-esteem. And then we all come in and we're all here and we're all broken human beings. And now we have walls and defenses up and we all have this ego, but it's false humility because we're trying to protect and persevere whatever little we have left.

11:31So that's what I see, and I want to Somehow break that barrier. And ShopFix, okay, I think every coaching company, like whoever you're with, dude, they're gonna teach you the same thing, right? They're gonna teach you gross profit per hour or labor capacity and the revenue and then chart of accounts. All that's like, I think 90% of the stuff is same. But at ShopFix, what we do is like, man, like I've never been a part of any other coaching group, but we really focus on the person, the background, who you are, and just believing in yourself again and just saying, I'm proud of you.

12:04And, uh, and that's been the impact of my growth. It's not learning the numbers per se, it's just believing in myself and someone out there saying, well, Aaron Stokes, he's the first one that looked at me in the eye and he goes, hey man, I believe in you, I'm proud of you. And that just does something to you. Yeah, so it's definitely been my experience as well, is seeing that Each coaching organization tends to have its own little spin on things.

12:32For me, Elite is very numbers-driven and data-driven and focused on understanding the analytics to a very high level, right? And in my little exposure to Aaron and Shopfix, it was, you know, you need those things, you need those, the fundamentals and that foundation, but it's a lot more about emotional management and understanding self-sabotage and, and confidence and that kind of thing. So I think there's definitely a need for that as well.

13:09I do want to go back. You mentioned, you know, all the haters. It drives me crazy how divided and disparate our industry is. It's also part of what's so glorious about our industry is because it is the independent aftermarket, we're allowed to do it the way that we want to do it. Right. But it's also so hard to get everybody pulling in the same direction so that we can have meaningful change that sticks.

13:34Right. For the, for the very same reason. Everybody wants to tear down success. One of the analogies that I draw is if I'm driving down the highway and the speed limit is 65 miles an hour, well, I'm a really good driver, so I can do 75. Right? And anybody who's going slower than me needs to get out of my way because I know what I'm doing.

13:54Anybody who's driving faster than me is crazy and reckless and they need to be arrested, right? And so look at how awesome my shop is, and you should all follow me and do my business the way that I do it. And if you do it any other way, then you're stupid and you need to learn from me. And if you do more than I can do, you must be unethical, you must be ripping people off or taking advantage of your employees or whatever it is.

14:18And man, that drives me crazy that that's so prevalent across what we do. I know that— I believe that some of that underlying hate and shade that was thrown towards Aaron and ShopFix early on because of the explosive growth that they had was jealousy because they were doing things that other people couldn't do. Now, there were other people that had specific instances, like, "There was one time he said this, and I disagree with that, so therefore everything he ever said is wrong or evil or based on a lie," right?

14:56Man, I hope that I never have to be judged for my entire life on my worst moment or on any one thing where I misspoke, but Man, it's such a divisive thing. I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, if you're looking for a specific thing, then you'll find it. I mean, you can edit the clips however you want.

15:17I mean, someone can take this podcast and edit it the way they want and portray us to, you know, how they think of us, right? That's what Braxton does. He just edits the clips down to make them rage-baity. So, you know, you just, I guess you just kind of head down and behave in an ethical way and do the best you can to help as many people as you can and go from there.

15:41What does 2026 look like for you? I mean, for me, you know, a lot of people ask me, are you looking for a new shop or are you looking to grow? I mean, if the perfect opportunity comes, I will. However, like I believe that every shop out there, we can just be a little bit more efficient. So I try to tackle efficiency more than just revenue growth or store growth.

16:04And that comes from opening up 3 shops and not knowing what the hell I was doing, right? So I lost so much money and so much headache. So I realized like most people out there, if you have about 8 to 10 days, you can net $1 million with one shop, just one shop. And it's just so much easier to, you know, and your people are happier because you're pouring all your marketing into one location.

16:22It's just easier for me. My kids right now are 9 and 7, and man, family time, I'm never gonna give that up. I always take a week off every single month. We either go to Disney World, we take a cruise, but no matter what, we do something. I gotta talk about cruises. Okay, so you've got a whole YouTube channel for cruises, right?

16:42I did, dude. I, I have channels for everything, and I started and then I just give up on it, so it's been a while. But yeah, yeah. So you're a big MSC, right? I am. So I've been trying to get my family to get on board with cruises for years, right? And they never could. They never would. They never would. And we're not going to like it.

17:01Well, last year I finally got my wife to go on one and she's like, holy shit, I love this. This is great. And so then we did a Disney cruise and we're doing Royal Caribbean cruises and we're trying to figure out what is like, what's our cadence going to be, frequency and that kind of thing. Um, why MSC over like a Royal Caribbean or, uh, or something else?

17:19Dude, MSC, I've just— MSC is a lot cheaper than other cruises, right? You just get better value. I'm Asian, man. I'm still cheap, right? I might make a lot of money now, but I'm cheap, right? That always follows you, and that just comes from being broke early on, right? So, um, and that's something that Aaron has always struggled with. He's always sharing like, man, I struggle with, you know, spending like this.

17:39Like, he's making millions. He's like, I struggle spending $40 grand on this one thing, which is just chump change to him. But MSC, they have what's called Yacht Club, and you have your own butler. It's like a boat within a boat. Oh, boat within a boat, man. Like, we will stay in the owner's suite, which is the best room in the, you know, on the whole ship.

17:57So it'll run you about like $15 to $20 grand a week, but a similar room in a, like, on a Royal Caribbean would be like $60 grand, right? So it's like, it's like a small apartment. You're on the very front. You have a jacuzzi out on the deck. The butler will like, I mean, I don't have them do this, but they'll unpack your luggage for you and stuff like that and just escort you everywhere.

18:17Yeah, man, I want that. I want somebody come unpack my shit. They'll bring you food on a silver platter. But yeah, man, we cruise so often with them. We became friends with the butlers. Like, we know like almost all the crew. So hey everybody, I'm going to take just a quick minute out of our show to talk to you about one of the favorite tools that we have in my company.

18:35To help streamline and make our guys as efficient as possible, and that's Detect Auto. I've been talking about Detect Auto for almost a year at this point, and my team still loves it. And if you listen to the show, you know that I love the idea of bringing in skilled individuals from outside of the industry to add to our shortage within our trade, right?

18:55But one of the problems that you run into sometimes with that is that these guys and gals might not have a full automotive knowledge just yet. And as a technician, if you've ever gotten a repair order that says check noise, you know how infuriating that can be. Well, this tool, the Customer Concern Tool, is designed specifically for that. The advisor can put in 1 or 2 or 3 words about what the complaint is, and then it's going to prompt them all the questions that they need to ask that customer.

19:23And then it puts that into a paragraph form that's easy to understand for the technician. So that technician's not getting check noise, check vibration. They're getting all the information that they would like to have from the customer. It just makes things more efficient. It makes guys in the back happier, and it just makes the business run more smoothly. If you want to find out more about this and the other tools available on Detect Auto, just reach out to us through the link in the show notes.

19:56Yeah, it's been good. My kids grew up with them. How's the quality of food? On the boat. I think it's great. Yeah, I think, I think it's good. All right, so Amanda, we're gonna have to try MSC. We're gonna try to get in the yacht club. Note it. Um, that's cool. Uh, also, I think, uh, at the risk of, uh, pushing up on some stereotypes, you are an Asian man.

20:17Uh, are you a degenerate gambler like me? Oh, hell yeah, man. Okay, what's your game? Uh, I used to play poker. Okay. But now, you know, that's a lot— takes a lot of patience, right? Yeah. So now it's all blackjack all day. Any craps or anything? You ever throw dice? Yeah, I used to, I used to throw dice. Yeah, but now it's like blackjack.

20:34Yeah, you play craps? I love craps and a little bit of like, if the craps table's not good or like if you get, if you get there and they don't have a good table open, you know, they got craps lists as the only thing that's open. I got no interest in that. Yeah, I'll go play blackjack. Yeah, so, and then dude, like when, when I'm up in blackjack like a lot, I'll go to the roulette table and start splashing chips, man.

20:53Yeah, it is bad, man. When, when you're on a cruise boat and you're stuck on the boat and the only thing there is a freaking casino right smack dab in the middle, it gets a little bit dangerous. That's how you get in the yacht club. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Um, all right, so you got, uh, I love talking about hobbies now.

21:12So you're a degenerate gambler like me, you like cruises like me. I feel like maybe we're just secret brothers, I don't know. Yeah, maybe. Um, I know you get a place down on the coast. Yep. Um, how has that been for you? We were almost there, and then there was fear of cost of maintenance and upkeep being so labor intensive because salt air and everything else.

21:32Oh dude, the salt eats up everything, man. It eats up everything. But man, the reason why I got a place on the coast, you know, there's a saying, um, success can be duplicated. So my thought was, when I heard that, I was like, dude, I just gotta pick somebody that's really successful, I just gotta copy them, and I'll, I'll get that same success.

21:51So who I picked was Aaron Stokes, and I just wanted to be everything like him, like everything he was doing. And so I'm Asian, right? I was like, I'm never gonna buy a boat, right? Because as soon as it hits the water, it's gonna freaking depreciate. It's probably the worst thing you can buy. But one time Aaron, on stage, he was like, man, having a boat and having all your family on that boat and just looking out back and cheering the guy on the wake, you know, wakeboard.

22:14Yeah. That's the best form of entertainment you can have. It's like the most wholesome fun and you bring everyone together. And he had a lake house, you would bring everyone together. He's like, "Man, I don't want my kids going over to other people's places. I wanna make a place where we gather everyone here so we can keep our kids here." I heard that and I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna buy a boat."

22:32And I bought a boat and I bought a place at the coast. And man, let me just tell you, since '22, we spent every summer there and I've brought my employees, I've brought friends, friends. I mean, we just had the most amazing time. Just, just like Aaron said, we'd be on the boat and then like, I'm in the coast at the Outer Banks, so we can go out where no one else can get to.

22:53Like, it's just these smaller islands and just private islands that we would find and just these private beaches. And it's just, it's just fun, man. It's just like you see dolphins out there and all kinds of stuff. That's awesome. So I, uh, my brother's a big boater guy and he's always been like, when he— is it because I live on a a small lake, but it's, uh, no motorized boats, so it's, uh, you know, paddle boards and canoes only.

23:13That's peaceful, man. Yeah, um, so I enjoy that, but, you know, he's got the big wake boat and everything down on a big water lake. And, uh, I think a beach house is in the future one day. We'll see. But, uh, what do you think is the long-term goal for CarMax? Are you gonna pass it on to the kids potentially, or You have an exit plan or timeframe?

23:38So I thought about that too, 'cause I see all these, you know, small, like the equity firms buying out shops, right? And they're paying like ridiculous multiples, you know, for small shops. Crazy. It's like, I still, one owner, he's a friend of mine, he just sold his for like a 5 or 6x multiple and he just one location. Yeah. And I mean, he was netting, he's netting a lot.

23:57He did really well. And so I think about that. I'm like, well, all right. Let's say somebody just offered me $5 million for my one location. $5 million. All right, well, I still gotta pay taxes on that. And then, you know, I like to ex— you know, like, once you have a finite amount of money, what am I gonna do with it?

24:14Just put it in the stock market? I don't know. But my business always cash flows. And so I don't know if I could ever give that up. It's just, I'm never at my shop. I went for— the first time I went to my shop was like I think 4 days ago this year. Before then, I didn't go into my shop. I think after Christmas is when I went out to give out some Christmas cash.

24:37And then before then, I can't remember when I went in. So I've achieved 100% freedom in my shop. It prints money for me. My people are happy, have good leadership in place. So I don't know why I would sell it. Yeah, that's fair. If it's automatic, you know, it's automatic. How often do you check in on it and monitor and set the guardrails?

24:54So we have daily goals. Like, this is, I ask a lot of owners this. I was like, hey, how did you do yesterday? Did you do well yesterday? And then a lot of owners were like, man, I feel like we did good. I think we did good. Or I think we did bad. Our cart count was down. It's always like, I think, I feel.

25:10But we run our business off the numbers. We have absolute minimum gross profit dollar goals that we have to hit. And if we are $200 off, this is my mentality and this is my manager's mentality. Even if we're $200 off in our sales in GP dollars, if we repeat this day every single day, then there's a day that we're gonna go bankrupt in the future if we repeat this.

25:30Even if I have a million dollars in the bank. So with that— You're gonna bleed it dry. Yeah. Oh yeah. So with that mindset we have, my manager texts me and my advisors the numbers for the day, the sales numbers for the day, and that, that's a guardrail. Do you count the sales when the customer gives the approval or when the cash gets put in the till?

25:51When the customer gives approval. So the idea is, as long as I— and I'll just say my minimum numbers right now, $6,200 GP a day. If I hit that per day, and it doesn't have to close out, just got to be approved, because I know one day, I mean, it's gonna get— yeah, it's gonna get closed out. And my people only get paid on the work that's closed out.

26:12So That's another guardrail, right? Advisors get paid off of commission, off of GP dollars only. So they get paid when the— when the customer closes. Yeah. So I, I'm trying to evolve my business to focus not on top line rep. I don't focus on top line revenue. Yeah, I don't focus on top line revenue. Does nothing to me. Yeah, nothing for me.

26:32Yeah. I'm trying to get my team to not fall in love with the flashy $20,000 BMW motor because I mean, how long is that going to take? Yeah. How long is it going to tie up the bay? Yeah. How much is the, oh, we forgot this part, going to be eating into margins? And it's a low margin ticket, but oh, the GPH is good.

26:52Yeah, but it was there for 3 days, you know, whatever it was. So we're trying to drive home that focus on GP approval per day. Yes. And each location knows what their number is and they know what their target— they know what the minimum number is and they know what the target number is. And so just trying to shift mindset and thought process in that capacity.

27:12But I am curious about celebrating the wins when they get the approval. But I have had some throughput issues where it's like we just can't get the big jobs out of the bay. And so, yeah, it builds up and it builds up. I'd like it to be, you know, $8,000 to $10,000 of GP on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday, right?

27:37But what ends up happening— I'd like that to be what gets billed out, right? What ends up happening is that's what's approved, but they bill out $4,000 and then $3,000 and then $12,000 and then, you know, $8,000 and then $35,000 on Friday. I'm like, guys, why? I mean, come on. So establishing that sense of urgency is something that we're struggling with right now, and this consistent sense of urgency.

28:02We got to help this person right now. They don't want their car next Monday, they want their car right now. Yeah, so it's just a consistent coaching thing. Yeah, so you do morning huddles or, uh, absolutely all that kind of stuff. Oh dude, we do every single morning, 7:30 to 8 o'clock, we have morning meetings between the advisor and technician. It's so important to have all those guys together.

28:24They don't realize it, but they're in the same boat. But a lot of times it's just how the shops are designed. It's always a battle, tug of war between the front and the back, and they think they're at wits' end, you know, they think they're on opposite sides, but they're on the same boat. But they're— each of them are, they're holding a drill and just drilling holes in the boat, you know.

28:42And that's our opportunity to smack the drill out of them, you know. But yeah, every morning, and that's so key. So we do 7:30 to 7:45 with advisors in the morning, and then we do a small huddle with technicians at like 7:50, and then doors open at 8 for us. But I haven't thought about bringing everyone together. We do once a month after hours, everybody at all locations is invited to come together and we eat and drink together and talk about process and procedure, which has been good for us, but we've only been doing that for about 5 months.

29:14So just, you know, trying to figure out how to be better at what we do. Yeah. Um, so cool. You're not looking to be an evil multi-shop owner. You just want to have, uh, one badass shop that, that runs on autopilot. That's pretty cool. Um, I do think a lot of guys that come to these coaching events or training events or join a coaching group and they see all the guys that are kind of put up on a pedestal.

29:43As this is the player, this is the dog, right? And I went from one store and I quadrupled in a year, and then I— and now I've got, you know, 9 stores or whatever it is. And I see that as the standard, and they can't be comfortable and happy with where they are and the success that they have because they're always trying to catch up and keep up.

30:00That, and I think it's very dangerous if you grow in the wrong way because you're going to keep growing but you're not necessarily cash flowing, right? So you don't have any cash in the bank. And they have built a house on cards, right? Their business is built on a house of cards. One bad month will actually ruin their whole operation. I mean, there's some shop owners that are doing great and doing big numbers.

30:22And yes, like the shiny, like the best example is Luke Walker. He's an amazing, I don't know if you know Luke. He's an amazing guy, the most humble, the most genuine guy I've ever met. And his, he has one store that does $1 million a month. A month in sales, $1 million. And I remember Luke saying this, or Aaron was telling me about Luke saying this.

30:41It's like, man, it's like everyone cares about my big store because just because it does $1 million a month in sales, but he only nets 10% of that in that store. And he's like, man, that store is a headache. 'Cause think about how— A lot to manage. Dude, yeah, think about how many advisors you have to have, how many GSs you have to have, the support staff.

30:58And he's like, dude, I want nothing to do with that shop. You know, that's like, I don't care about that. Shop. I care about my smaller stores that are netting more. And I think that's just a prime example. It's like even, even Luke with that $1 million shop, he wants to— he likes his other smaller shops more that are netting more. And I noticed it's like, dude, if you want to net $100,000 a month cash flow, right?

31:20If you do, you know, if you net 10%, yeah, you have to do $1 million. But at 30%, what is that? It's like only $330,000. Yeah. Right? So it's a huge difference. And the difference between a $330,000 revenue store and a million dollar revenue store. It's enormous. It's enormous. And so which one would you try to go for? Dude, I'm gonna try to net 30% every time.

31:41Do you see the ability to get those super high net numbers being challenged and compressed more and more with labor forces being what they are and? Well, here's the thing. I met with the, You know CEO of Advanced Auto Parts? They're in our town. So I had lunch with Shane O'Kelly, right? And then I asked him about, you know, the question I asked is, hey, do you think motivating employees work?

32:08And he drew this four square for me and he was like, man, high skill, high will employees, you delegate them. Low skill, low will employees, you fire them. High skill, low will, you then you motivate, and then like a low skill, high will, you train. Yeah, but I had an epiphany at that moment. High skilled people will always make you money. Low skilled people will always cost you money.

32:36So here's the thing. Outdated SMS, just— they don't just slow you down, they cost you money. And I learned it the hard way. Before Techmetric, I was wasting time on inefficient processes, manual updates, back and forth calls with customers. Now I handle everything in one place. DVI, customer communications, payments, real-time reporting, it's all in one page. Since making the switch, my average repair order has jumped from $293 to $916.

33:02And it's not just me. TechMetric powers almost 10,000 shops nationwide. By the time you're hearing this, it probably will be 10,000 shops, helping them grow and operate smarter. If you're tired of losing time and money to outdated systems, tap the link in the show notes. See what Tekmetric can do for you. So in my business, I only flat rate or pay commission only for the advisors, flat rate only for the technicians.

33:27And the biggest difference is it's not because I'm trying to be cheap, because I can't get cheap technicians because all my technicians are skilled, right? Skilled technicians are not going to work somewhere where you're going to be cheap. So I pay them very, very well. 401, you know, 75% medical, dental. I provide whatever. But because they're high skill, they'll always make me money.

33:47And I don't have any GSs. So it's easier to net without low skill people. What do you think about, you know, the concept that Hayes has come into the market with in the last couple years? Or, I mean, he's been doing it for a long time. A lot of people have been doing it for a long time, but he's made it more widely known.

34:09In the training circles that we operate in about speed of service being the name of the game. I think the way that ShopFix says it is money loves speed, I think is what y'all say. Yeah. But they do the Rack Attack program and I've tried Rack Attack to varying levels of success and like anything else, it depends on the people that you've got, right?

34:29Right. On how well it's executed. You said you have no GSs. How do you try to execute on speed speed at a very high level with nothing but high-skilled techs. Yep. Yeah, so for me, it's all about perception, right? We all agree that auto repair is getting harder to sell. I mean, our customers are broke right now. I don't know if you noticed it, but man, nobody wants to spend money on auto repair.

34:54And we advertise the cheaper oil changes to get people in, and no one thinks that they're going to come in and just, you know, stay there for an hour. Dude, there's a Take 5 Oil Change opening up right across the industry for me. So customer perception is, dude, all changes should only take 5 minutes. If Take 5 can do it in 5 minutes, why can't you do it in 5 minutes?

35:10That's the perception. So I absolutely agree that sense of urgency, speed of service is everything because we have to come from the customer perspective, right? Because they are the— they are king, right? If we have no customer— and that's the biggest thing I see is like when I think about it, I see a lot of ego in the industry and they're like, that's not my customer, or, you know, like, I'm not going to service them, or we're going to do it my way, not your way.

35:35But ultimately, if you don't have any customers, your customers are the boss. So we have to give them what they want. And nobody wants to sit in the auto repair facility for an hour, right? They all got something to do. So what we do, we don't do the rack attack because, you know, we can't have 5 people, you know, do the rack attack at once.

35:51I don't know the policy really, but, uh, but what we do is we we do what's called a show and tell, or we call it show and tell. Yeah. And so, you know, before the customer even gets comfortable to sit down, our technician has already pulled the car in, you know, lifted it up, pulled the drain plug, right? And while the oil is draining, we will look for the biggest safety issues.

36:12Yeah, we call it the ISO, but yeah. And I mean, that you can find within 10 minutes for sure, right? If you see a bald tire with wires hanging out, dude, are you not gonna see that right away? Or like, we will always— how long does it take to shake down a tire, right? And if you have a tie rod with 9 degrees of play, and if the customer doesn't buy that one thing, are they gonna buy anything else?

36:31Probably not. So we use that kind of as a litmus test as well, but we always point out the biggest safety issue. Now, we got a lot of flack. I remember Aaron talking about this, and we got flack from this other YouTube channel about, oh, you're not telling them the whole story. No, we tell them the whole story, actually. Once we sell the work, right, we give them a ride home so they're not in our facility all day.

36:52We check out the rest of the car, present the rest of the ticket to the customer, and then we start to work. So that's where the misconception comes in. Well, that was a little bit of rage baiting too. That dude was looking for content engagement, I think. Well, I think you got plenty of it, right? Yeah. Um, I think, uh, we had actually had this conversation.

37:10We were doing an RO audit with a team at one stores last week because tech average quote had really tanked abnormally because that store historically had had really like right in line with where we wanted it to be. And what we had said, we had discussed, you know, if the customer is not going to buy the ISO or the, you know, the one thing, they're probably not going to buy other things if the one thing that we presented to them is the most urgent, most safety-related, most visually compelling item, right?

37:40And so I said, don't waste time estimating all the other stuff, just document it. You still got to tell them. Oh, absolutely. And I didn't communicate clearly enough in that, in that it was one of those Tuesday night meetings, right, with everybody from all locations were together. And the way they interpreted it at that store, not the other two, was don't finish the DBI, just go ahead and back it out.

38:08And so our tech average quote just tanked even though I was telling them not to quote those things, but it became a crutch. They're like, oh, well, if I didn't sell that, I'm not— and well, that customer's not going to buy anything. I'm not even going to look, you know, it's like, yeah, we have a professional obligation to let them know the condition of their vehicle.

38:26Absolutely. And just like with multistage sales, you know, if we do a show and sell or an ISO presentation, and sell them on one thing, and we put them in a loaner car and get them down the road, or get them an Uber home, or whatever it might be, um, we can't start on those brakes or those tires or anything else until they know about everything else that the car needs that we see.

38:44Yeah, because you never want to be in a situation where they say, well, I wouldn't have approved that first $1,000 if I had known it needed $2,000 more. Absolutely, that's exactly right. I agree with 100%. So, you know, that methodology and however you want to package it and brand it and and teach it is not unethical as long as you're ethical. Absolutely.

39:06Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, whether you're flat rate or being paid hourly, if you're an unethical person, you're going to take shortcuts no matter what because they're still lazy. So it doesn't matter if you're flat rate or, you know, and it's just about hiring good people. We want good people working for us, you know? Yeah, for sure. So yeah, 100%.

39:24And there is one thing that I feel like we got to talk about, and that you said, you know, Aaron kind of became the guy that you were trying to emulate. He was your role model. And I know that you went and got the house at the coast and you got the boat and you got an airplane. You started flying airplanes. And we lost Aaron last month in a tragic accident.

39:46Everything that I've read says that it was a really sketchy approach that never should have been approved. In the first place. Yeah. And it was just autopilot into terrain, which is horrible to think about. How has that impacted the team at ChopFix and the industry as a whole? Because love him or hate him, the man had an incredible impact and changed the lives of thousands of families in a positive way.

40:10Yeah. Well, you know, there's a saying or there's a quote I've read and the strength The leader is revealed in his absence. And one thing about Aaron, he was a leader. And he has gathered, I mean, the coaches that you see in ShopFix, I mean, each, every, I think Aaron has brought all of us together. And we have become stronger than ever.

40:33And we're just for the mission. The mission is to keep the average small business from destroying the average small family. Family. That is the mission, and we're gonna see it carry forward. And I know it sounds weird to say, but, you know, actually, I'm not gonna say because this can be misconstrued. Yeah, but, um, but that's the mission, and we just have a heart for just the lost and broken shop owners.

41:01Wow. So, yeah, I'm, I'm saddened, as is the, the whole industry to lose Aaron so early. I think it was incredible what he was building and what he was doing, and it was incredible to sit back and watch him operate and maneuver, and just from the outside looking in, not even any kind of behind the scenes. I imagine behind the scenes it was even more incredible to watch him operate.

41:28Yeah, but the thing about Aaron is like, I'm always afraid to get close to leadership, like in churches and stuff. I don't know if you go church, but I've been in churches where I became, you know, in that, you know, this inner circle and you start seeing things and you start getting disappointed. And I was like, man, when am I gonna start seeing things about Aaron or the inner circle of ShopFix?

41:50Once I start peeling back the layers, what am I gonna see? And I've been, actually this month, it's 3 years since I've been coaching for ShopFix now and who Aaron presented himself to be on stage That's who he was in person, like 100%. So yeah, he was one of a kind. I don't know if there's anyone else that can— I've never seen anyone like him.

42:15What's next for ShopFix? 3,000 members. It's gonna be 3,000. Who's gonna be the owner of ShopFix? Oh, Aaron's wife Lydia has always been the owner. Okay. Yeah, so she's always been the owner. Okay. And Berg is the CEO. Yeah, it's just crazy how things played out. It's as if this was planned out, like everything was already in place. And for the last few years, Aaron hasn't been part of the planning for the conferences or anything.

42:42You know, he would speak on stage, but everything's been put into place. It's almost as if this was planned out. And Aaron had a 10-year goal that he laid out for ShopFix, so we're not skipping a beat. In fact, because of what's happened, we're even— we're stronger than ever. So, wow. So it's bittersweet for sure. For sure. Well, Jay, thank you for coming on, dude.

43:02I appreciate it. Um, and thanks for sharing your story. And, uh, I'll let you know how my family's first MSC cruise goes. Yeah, probably will be Yacht Club because, you know, I'm not quite the baller that you are. But one day, uh, well, maybe we'll be on the same boat at some point and we can, uh, we can play craps together. Oh, that'd be great, man.

43:18That'd be great. Thanks, dude. Yeah, see ya. Thanks for listening to Confessions of a Shop Owner, where we lay it all out— the good, the bad, and sometimes the super messed up. I'm your host, Mike Allen, here to remind you that even the pros screw it up sometimes. So why not laugh a little bit, learn a little bit, and maybe have another drink?

43:34You got a confession of your own or a topic you'd like me to cover, or do you just want to let me know what an idiot I am? Email mike@confessionsofashopowner.com or call and leave a message. The number is 704-266-3377. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, or follow. Join us on this crazy journey that is shop ownership. I'll see you on the next episode.

44:11You know what I said, Jess? You know what I said, Jess? All right, guys, AI class. Learn how to use AI so that you can make it your bitch and you don't become its bitch. Saturday, June 13th, Seth Thorson's teaching a full-day class in Raleigh, North Carolina. Tap the link in the show notes or scan the QR code on your screen to learn more.

44:49It's gonna be awesome.